Date:   8/4/2006 8:27:26 AM ( 18 y ago)
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The following recovery story is a bit old and is sorely due for an upgrade, but I thought that it might still be useful in its current state. Allen


A Synopsis of a Natural Recovery from Manic Depression and Some of the Lessons that I Have Learned (2004)

By Allen Darman


Soon after I was first diagnosed with manic Depression in June of 1994, I soon realized that the likelihood of my ever becoming truly well from this condition was almost non-existent. I also realized that my chances of ever becoming well from manic Depression were perhaps far less than that of most persons. This realization stemmed from the facts that (1) my true bipolar onset was in 1963 as an eleven year old child (amazingly I had avoided the medical model for over three decades despite very substantial symptoms), (2) over the thirty one years prior to my initial diagnosis I had already had hundreds of episodes of either very substantial mania or severe depression, and (3) I was not responding well to lithium at all, as even on 900 mg. my hands shook uncontrollably and I lost a great deal of reading comprehension and general mental acuity.

In essence, if anyone knew the truth of my circumstances in 1994, as well as knew the truth of my prior life experiences for the past three decades, I was not a person that was ever going to get better from manic depression. It was hopeless, or so even I had thought. Despite such hopelessness, I have always been a person that does not like being told that something is impossible. In July of 1994, I will always remember telling a very close bipolar friend of mine with tears in my eyes “if there is any way out of this trap [manic depression]. I am going to everything that I can to find it [for both of us].” This single statement has defined the last ten years of my life.

It is now June of 2004. For a little over four years, I have been able to completely control any manic depressive symptoms in myself, when I so choose to use my profound understanding of the true common causes this illness and/or when I have the means to afford optimal nutritional and other natural supplementation. And for a few years prior to June 2000, I was very close to knowing then what I know today.

I have not taken a single psychotropic medicine since September of 1997. Nor have I needed to take any medication since this time in order to control the symptoms of my illness. In November 1997, about five months after I had started to use psychotropic nutrients such as amino acids and use other natural measures as well, I had gained much greater control over my biochemistry and behavior than any drug that my psychiatrist had ever given me for manic depression.

What follows is the story of my recovery from an often devastating mental illness, an illness that most persons still erroneously consider incurable.

From the time I was first diagnosed with manic depression in June 1994 until I made a successful transition off of medication by using amino acids and other natural measures, I was prescribed and took the following medications for various periods of time; lithium, Depakote, Elavil, Zoloft, Serzone, Paxil, Ambien, Xanex, and Klonopin.

Neither mood stabilizer worked well for me. I took lithium in various dosages for about eight months. Lithium made me “a zombie” in 1200 mg. and 900 mg. dosages. I could not resolve hand trembling at these dosages as well. On lower dosages of 600 mg. and 300 mg. of lithium my mania recurrently, if not easily, broke through. Lithium did not seem to help my depressive states at all. My manic states rather easily blew through Depakote like it was water.

I slept sixteen hours a day on what I believe was only a 50 mg. dosage of Elavil. This medication clearly did not work out well for me. I was only prescribed Paxil and Serzone for a very short period of time (about a week) during one hospitalization that I had in July of 1996 for severe depression. Paxil and Serzone, in combination with Depakote, shut my small intestines down such that they nearly burst. I nearly died from this unusual drug combination of an SSRI antidepressant, a tricyclic antidepressant, and Depakote, all given at the same time (as it caused this intestinal shutdown, a medical condition with a name that is something like “paralytic illeus”).

Ambien helped me a little to sleep, but on even a “double dose” of this I could often only get three hours rest, which was not nearly enough sleep when I was manic, and I was manic quite a bit in the late 80”s though mid 1997. Often Sominex, an over the counter sleep remedy, would give me just as much sleep as Ambien, if not a bit more.

When I was first prescribed Xanex in December of 1995, this medication was a godsend for me. Finally I had found a chemical substance that would knock me out. Xanex was the first medication that I ever took that allowed me to get enough sleep such that my manic states did “not go over the top”. I was not taking a mood stabilizer at this time, so getting enough sleep was critical to me, and Xanex did the trick. However, within three months of my first taking Xanex, I had an adverse reaction to it (very blurred vision in one eye) on only .875 mg, a very low dose for most persons. As a result of this adverse reaction, I had to cease taking Xanex immediately. Perhaps needless to say, I had a fairly manic March of 1996 after I abruptly had to cease taking Xanex, as I could hardly sleep at all.

Of all the medications that I ever took for manic depression, two of them helped me substantially for fairly significant lengths of time. The first of these medications was Zoloft. When I first took Zoloft in the fall of 1992, this medication lifted me out of a three and a half month bout with severe depression in about two weeks. The whole world looked rosy to me when I first took Zoloft. I could not believe the change. As suicidal and as ignorant of depression as I was at the time, Zoloft may have actually saved my life. For this I am very thankful. However, towards the end of my time on medication, even twice as much Zoloft as I had always responded to did not seem to help me out of severe depression at all.

In September of 1996, I decided to begin to take a few vitamins and minerals in an attempt lift myself out of a current state of deep depression. This was the first depressive state I ever had that had not responded well to Zoloft. Within a few weeks of starting to take vitamins and minerals to help my mood state for the first time, I knew that these nutrient substances had made a huge difference. And finally, after months of feeling really blue, I was not depressed.

The second medication that I took for manic depression that helped me substantially was Klonopin. After I had an adverse reaction to Xanex in February of 1996 and had to stop taking it, I went though a fairly manic month or so. I was in real trouble at this point. I simply could not sleep well in March of 1996 without some sort of powerful chemical assistance. Whenever I could not sleep enough my manic state escalated rather quickly into severe mania. After reading a number of books and talking to a few other persons, I asked my psychiatrist for a trial of Klonopin, despite the fact that I had already had a negative reaction to another benzodiazapine medication. Reluctantly he agreed. I went on Klonopin in April of 1996. Klonopin was also a godsend for me. It bought me 18 months of being able to sleep at least enough so that I did not end up in the hospital for severe mania, and/or burn up any more serious money from being really manic. Even though I only got about four and a half to five hours or so of sleep on Klonopin, and in the end I had to have a few beers with 2 mg. of Klonopin in order to really go down at night, at least I could sleep long enough and deep enough so that in the morning when I woke up I was no longer really manic. I used to actually get up sluggish in the morning, what I called “a Klonopin hangover”, but by the end of that same day, I was often pretty zippity again… manic enough that I could not fall asleep and sleep well at all without either Klonopin or a combination of Klonopin and alcohol. I took Klonopin daily from April 1996 until September of 1997. I became clearly and knowingly addicted to Klonopin, not knowing a better answer to control my manic depressive tendencies at the time.

As result of my initial success with using some vitamins and minerals to help resolve depression in myself in September 1996, I began to experiment with other nutrients, despite the fact I was still on, and still really needed to take, Klonopin. In November of 1996, I began taking a potassium supplement. At this time, I was running on the high side (hypomanic), but I was not out of control. I was just running faster than the norm, but I was still lucid and quite functional. Either the very first day or the second day that I took potassium, I knew that just the simple mineral potassium made my manic state noticeably more elevated (worse). I immediately stopped taking potassium. My interest in nutrients grew immensely at this point. How could just a simple potassium supplement make my manic states worse? And if potassium made my manic states worse, I wondered would potassium help my depressive states? A few months later, in January of 1997, I found out. Potassium clearly made my depressed state in January of 1997 better, almost as much as Zoloft had done, but it did so much quicker. How could this be? I remember thinking at this time "how could such simple and elemental nutrients be ignored by the doctors that treat mental illness?" Perhaps needless to say, I soon began to experiment with nutrients even more.

In May of 1997, I began to take my first amino acid, the excitatory amino acid tyrosine. I took 500 mg. of tyrosine in the morning, with the odd collection of vitamins and minerals I had already determined as helpful to me over the past nine months or so. I was feeling pretty good at the time, not too manic, and not at all depressed. I did not notice the effect of tyrosine on me until the bottle ran out and I did not bother to replace it. Within a week of my not taking tyrosine, I realized that I had sunk day by day from a fairly stable and functional state to a state of serious, if not severe, depression. As I lay in my bed in early July of 1997, I wondered why? Why was I depressed? Life was clearly going very well for me at this point in my life. I had no triggers, no stressors, such that I should feel depressed unless… my depressive onset was simply chemical in nature. I finally realized as I lay thinking in my bed that it was the fact that I had run out of tyrosine that I was depressed. I theorized that whatever tyrosine was making in my brain had become depleted. I also guessed, and guessed correctly, that whatever tyrosine was making in my brain was necessary for me to not feel depressed. (I later learned that tyrosine is the nutrient precursor to dopamine and norepinephrine, two key excitatory neurotransmitters. I also learned that tyrosine can either cause or contribute to a manic state, if a bipolar person takes too much tyrosine for their biochemistry at the moment. One needs to learn how to use inhibitory nutrients before taking tyrosine if they are bipolar – see below.).

As I did not have any tyrosine in the house, and it was Sunday night such that I could not just go to the health food store and just buy some more, I took some (nine grams in aggregate) of multi-amino acid tablets I had just recently ordered but had yet to take for the first time. Then I took my Klonopin, had a beer or two, and went to bed. Eight hours later, I woke up manic as hell. I could not believe what had happened to me. I had gone from a state of very serious depression to very severe mania within eight hours, simply as the result of amino acid ingestion. This was absolutely amazing to me. I repeated the same mistake a week later, with virtually the same result.

At this point in my life (July of 1997), I immediately knew the enormous social and scientific significance of what had just happened to me. I also immediately signed up to be “a guinea pig” for the rest of world in regard to what nutrients can do to correct manic depression. I was going to research and take every nutrient that I possibly could in an attempt to discover what it might teach me about correcting my condition of chemical imbalance. Soon after this, when I knew just a little bit more, I also decided to research every common impairment to essential nutrient delivery in the human species, as it was clear to me from the standpoints of both simple logic and my own self experience that these common nutrient impairment issues were often the true common causes of manic depression. In my opinion, this simple logic has been anecdotally proven to be correct, not only for myself, but also for a number of other persons that are bipolar as well.

My first discovery about how to use nutrients was that I discovered that it is “a must” from the standpoint of safety that a bipolar person learns how to use inhibitory nutrients before they start using excitatory ones, such as tyrosine or phenylalanine. Excitatory nutrients can easily cause bipolar persons to become hypomanic, manic, or severely manic within hours of their ingestion. If you are bipolar you definitely don’t want this to happen without having an answer in place beforehand. Inhibitory nutrients such as inhibitory amino acids can both counteract and balance excitatory ones. Inhibitory nutrients, when used properly, can resolve a manic state. Inhibitory nutrients, in combination with other natural measures, seem to take mania completely out of the equation if these nutrients are used properly on a daily basis.

In August of 1997, I began to use inhibitory nutrients, completely ceasing my use of excitatory nutrients temporarily due to my recognition of their dangers without having an antidote (knowledge of how to use inhibitory nutrients).

Within a month, by taking a combination of inhibitory nutrients I was able to get off of 18 months of daily Klonopin usage completely without any difficult withdrawal symptoms whatsoever. The three generally amino acids of taurine, GABA, and tryptophan were the heart of my inhibitory cocktail at this time. These three amino acids, along with a few vitamin and mineral cofactors, were giving me the best sleep of my entire adult life within a month of my first taking them.

Incidentally, the three amino acids of taurine, GABA, and tryptophan happen to be the very same amino acids that were helpful to Margot Kidder in regard to sleep and inhibition. In case you are not aware of this, Margot Kidder is an actress that overcame her own diagnosis of bipolar disorder via solely natural means. Taurine, GABA, and tryptophan also happen to be the same three amino acids that Julia Ross speaks about using successfully for inhibition in her book “The Mood Cure”. To the best of my knowledge, Margot Kidder, Julia Ross, and I all reached similar conclusions on these three amino acids independently of each other. Although it is true that any one person can respond positively or negatively to any individual amino acid, and therefore this inhibitory amino acid regime is clearly not for everyone, it appears rather remarkable to me that three persons independently of each other all found these same three amino acids as being useful to either themselves or their clients.

September of 1997 marked the last time that I have ever needed or wanted to take any medication whatsoever to control mania or depression in myself. Nutrients and other natural measures not only “did the job much better” that any medication that I ever took for my illness, nutrients and other natural measures also did the job much faster as well. Amino acids often work within a single hour, sometimes they need a single day, and rarely do amino acids need more than a handful of days to effect profoundly positive mood change. This should perhaps not be surprising, as roughly 99 out of the 100 or so known neurotransmitters are primarily amino acid based, as well as amino acids represent nearly three quarters of the functional chemistry in the body, once the water is taken out.

By January of 1998, I realized that manic depression was often simply the result of a sub-clinical malabsorption syndrome, of which allergic and toxic issues were nearly always involved as well. At this time I also realized that (1) multiple hidden food allergies , (2) intestinal dysbiosis issues (dysbiosis essentially means candida and other yeasts, various problematic bacteria, and/or parasites, (3) a possible lack of digestive enzymes, (4) a possible lack of HCL (stomach acid), (4) excessive cooked food intake, (5) a lack of nutrients in our depleted soils, and (6) stress (which is always biochemically depleting no matter what the source) were all issues that were either causative or contributory factors in my illness.

Of the aforementioned six factors, I sensed that multiple hidden food allergies and intestinal dysbiosis were often the primary issues to address in almost any person that is bipolar. It appears that these two factors are often the root cause of bipolar disorder in many of those thus afflicted.

Incidentally, other persons besides myself, many of them doctors or professional health care providers, believe that hidden food allergy and intestinal dysbiosis issues are often major, if not primary, causative factors underlying both ADHD and alcoholism as well. In addition to this, hidden food allergy and/or intestinal dysbiosis issues are strongly implicated by alternative medicine as a whole as being either causative or contributory to the symptoms of various other mental and physical maladies such as autism, schizophrenia, anxiety, fibromyalgia, migraines, and arthritis.

Over the past six years or so I have added a few more common malabsorptive factors to the conceptual overview reflected above. One of these malabsorptive factors is the possibility of inadequate hydration. Adequate water intake apparently helps with nutrient absorption in the small intestines. A second possible malabsorptive factor that I have added over time is inadequate physical movement in regard to the abdominal area. We humans were apparently designed to walk far more that our modern lifestyle dictates we do. This physical movement helps the intestinal area to work as well as it should, and it apparently helps nutrient absorption.

Despite my later realizations, for the most part the general conceptual overview that I developed in late 1997 is pretty much the same one that I am still using to remain well today. The general principle underlying this conceptual overview is “any factor that impairs adequate nutrient absorption into the body is a factor that can either directly cause or greatly contribute to the symptoms of manic depression”. And the general principal that “cures” bipolar disorder is “any and all common factors which impair nutrient delivery into the body are both fairly readily identifiable and adequately correctable in any person that may have them”.

Worthy of note here is that there appears to be a number of alternative practitioners that are either unaware themselves or that wish to take advantage of some of their patients that may be unaware for the purpose of fiscal gain. You do not need any doctor whatsoever to determine your hidden food allergies . No laboratory test whatsoever is accurate enough to determine someone’s food allergies or food intolerences. You only need to go on an Elimination Diet that is performed by you at home. Yet, perhaps tens of thousands of hidden food allergy tests of various sorts are still being recommended and prescribed to patients yearly by many practitioners of alternative medicine. You also do not need any laboratory tests whatsoever to determine candida or other intestinal dysbiosis issues in yourself as well. Simply dosing up slowly until you reach a therapeutic dosage level (that shows solid results both in the toilet and in your general bowel habits) with a probiotic such as powdered Primal Defense is all that is necessary to determine if candida and “bad bacteria” in the GI tract were a major problem for you prior to taking Primal Defense. And parasite testing is both known to be quite inaccurate and non-inclusive (it can miss a lot). An herbal parasitic regime administered by yourself at home such as that recommended by Dr. Hulda Clark or the website //www.curezone.org is far better than using any laboratory testing and/or medication whatsoever to resolve the issues of parasites if this issue applies to you. In addition, you don’t need either a doctor or any testing whatsoever to resolve the possible lack of digestive enzymes in yourself. Trial use of a powerful enzyme preparation such as DigestEnz, slowly dosing up while monitoring the effect in yourself is good simple advice that anyone can follow at home to determine if they may lack an adequate production of digestive enzymes in order to digest meals well. This can without the services or advice of any doctor whatsoever. And the trial use of HCL an hour or so after taking digestive enzymes when you eat a meal (if you are using such), dosing up slowly while monitoring the effect in yourself is good simple advice that anyone can follow at home to determine possible stomach acid deficiency in his or her self. This can also be done without the services or advice of any doctor whatsoever. Although the information contained in this paragraph is not nearly thorough enough to fully resolve these common malabsorptive issues of hidden food allergy, intestinal dysbiosis, a possible lack of digestive enzymes, and a possible lack of HCL, I think that you, the reader, may have a solid sense of where I am going here. “YOU CAN, IF NOT MUST, CURE YOURSELF” of manic depression for the most part. And you can do so without getting a lot of expensive and/or marginally useful (if not useless) laboratory tests to do so.

Going back to my story…

During 1998 and 1999, it became clear to me that the broad biochemical deficiency that manic depression not only effects the brain, it also effects the liver, the pancreas, the thyroid gland, the adrenal glands, etc. Every organ and cell in the body is essentially starving for functional nutrition in order for it to perform properly when one is bipolar.

And during 1998 and 1999, I also realized that most of the efforts to correct manic depression via natural means should be targeted towards correcting GI tract dysfunction, and not just targeted toward correcting the function of the brain itself. The brain is simply “a trailing secondary organ to primary gut events”. Gut status and brain status are far more closely connected than most persons realize.

Since September of 1997, when I first read the classic alternative medicine books “Depression - Cured At Last” by Dr. Sherry Rogers and “The Way Up From Down” by Dr. Priscilla Slagle (two books that greatly taught me the concepts in the conceptual model discussed above), I have picked through and picked through this newer alternative medicine reality, refining, validating, and/or improving on its great new truths.

I should perhaps mention here that I am of the opinion that newer alternative medical reality as generally represented by Dr. Sherry Rogers, Dr. Priscilla Slagle, Joan Matthews Larson, Patrick Holford, Dr. Charles Gant, Jerry Rubin, Elizabeth Lipski, Julia Ross and a number of other doctors and practitioners today is probably going to replace many of the older concepts and treatments of alternative medicine. Doctors such as Dr. Abram Hoffer (a man that is admittedly a true hero in my eyes nonetheless) and Dr. William Walsh are still espousing some older orthomolecular concepts and alternative treatments as “the highest degree of alternative medical truth”. Perhaps they are right. Only time will tell here. However, my life experience (an experience which has included taking well over 120,000 capsules of various supplements since mid-1997), my hundreds of informal self trials of intentionally inducing and then correcting bipolar symptoms (especially depression), and the great deal of research I have done since mid 1997 has led me to disagree with these doctors for the most part. I disagree with them in regard to their (1) general conceptual misunderstanding of my illness, (2) their incorrect focus in treating bipolar disorder as a result of point (1), and in regard to many of the treatments that they either recommend or miss recommending (when I feel such treatments are often necessary).

In stating the above, I do not mean to demean the individual, if not heroic, efforts of Dr. Hoffer, Dr. Walsh and other doctors of the same genre in any way whatsoever. However, it strongly appears to me that a newer conceptual model of mental illness and its proper treatment is replacing an older one inside the arena of alternative medicine, even if conventional medicine is not considered here at all. I am a person that concurs with this newer conceptual alternative understanding. This newer understanding seems to have begun to blossom over the last six years or so, an event to which we all perhaps owe special thanks to Dr. Sherry Rogers for her absolutely brilliant thought and her rather prolific writing. Dr. Rogers was by far my greatest teacher, despite her not knowing how to use amino acids therapeutically at all. (Knowledge of amino acid use was knowledge that I found was key for me in order to properly resolve my illness, and for this knowledge I had to go elsewhere.)

By early 2000, after many years of great effort, a hundred or so books, hundreds of conversations with other persons, many thousands of miles driven, and many tens of thousands of dollars spent, for all ostensible purposes I realized how I could always correct mania and depression in myself by solely using natural means. At this point in time, I could avoid any and all symptoms of my illness whenever I desired to. I could hit “biochemical 10’s” day after day and month after month at will if I so chose to do so. For me a “biochemical 10” means that I exhibit an aura of deep mental and physical wellness that is rather obvious to anyone that sees me. When I am a “biochemical 10” I live in the present. I feel great each and every moment that I am awake; and I am not manic at all, nor am I depressed at all as well. Very few “normal persons” without any psychiatric diagnosis whatsoever appear to feel nearly as well as I do or are as mood stable as I am when I am a “biochemical 10” as I define this to be in myself.

Once I knew that I could hit a “biochemical 10” at will whenever I wished to do so, I did something rather unusual, but with a number of reasons behind it. I often settled for a degree of wellness that was far less than a 10, a situation that is still true today. One reason for this is that for me to be a “biochemical 10” cost quite a bit of money supplement-wise (between $400 to $500 a month), a cost that I could not always afford. A second reason for this is that to be a 10 I had to always avoid quite a few foods that were constantly being put in front of me by either family or friends. Rather than always refuse them, I’d simply eat a food that I knew that I would react to negatively to some extent, and then I would test treatment methodology (clear this food out the next day or the day after by using high dosage Bentonite and psyllium). And the third reason, and by far the most important one, is that if I stayed a 10 month after month, my ability to continue to learn by trial and error and my ability to test or refine better treatments for my illness was completely lost. I was, and still am, willing to sacrifice my optimal own wellness for the sake of learning and for the sake of others. Few persons understand or accept this, but that is their problem, not mine.

Since the fall of 1997, I have not been trying all of the supplements and natural measures that I have simply to achieve my own wellness. I have been attempting to learn all that I can about my illness in order to make a contribution to the general understanding of my ill. I have been willingly and intentionally sacrificing my own optimal health and wellness in order to help other persons that still suffer. For the past seven years I have often been intentionally sloppy with my natural wellness regime. I have intentionally ingested my known food allergens at least a few hundred times, if not more. I have often intentionally caused or aggravated intestinal dysbiosis issues in myself as well (by a high Sugar diet). In doing so, I have intentionally caused manic depressive symptoms in myself, often to the point of severity. My goals in doing this were to test, validate, and/or refine my preexisting knowledge. As a concrete example here, I have intentionally induced and then corrected depression at will in myself within a day or two over a hundred times since August of 1999, the point in which I first realized that I could do so. I did not mind doing this at all, as it is my sincere belief that I was and still am developing a “world changing degree of knowledge”.

Since early 2000, I can quite literally create and then correct a rather incredible range of depressive symptoms in myself by using only natural means from within a matter of a handful of hours to a matter of three or four days. I can also create and then correct a significant degree of manic symptoms in myself by using only natural means within a matter of hours to a matter of days at will as well. Admittedly, despite the fact that I have been severely manic a few hundred times in my life between 1963 and 1996, it is extremely hard for me to become much more that seriously hypomanic at this point in time, and to do so can take me well over a month. I have simply corrected my biochemistry chemistry too much these past seven years or so to get severely manic any more without a great deal of time and effort. Although I can get hypomanic readily at will by taking a high dose of excitatory amino acids along with some vitamin and mineral cofactors, this state does not last longer than a matter of hours, and it appears to always be completely self corrective without any further intervention whatsoever. This is quite a contrast to my manic states years ago, in which my seriously hypomanic states had a strong tendency to continue to escalate to the point of severe mania. Conversely, I can simply eat right (which means avoiding my food allergens and eating a diet that is good for me), take care of my gut properly such that it is always absorptive and has a low level of toxins, and supplement my biochemistry as necessary. In doing so, I suffer no symptoms of manic depression whatsoever.

I have found few persons understand or accept what I am attempting to do in the above. I have also found that many persons are either awful quick to criticize me or they try to discredit me with others for not being completely well at all times. They either do not realize or do not accept that all of what I have been doing for a number of years and am still doing today in regard to my being well or my becoming sick is often intentional for the purpose of learning more about my illness. And if my being sick is not intentional, it is just that I have become too fiscally impoverished to be able to remain optimal at all times. I simply conserve my supply of costly supplements to be optimally well when the need arises. However, given adequate fiscal means to do so, and a valid reason (or reasons) to be optimally well, I can be such at all times. This has been the case since April 2000, if not a few months sooner.

If the truth was actually known, by any valid measurement whatsoever, I have quite literally “cured myself of over three decades of severe symptoms of manic depression”. I do not know it all about manic depression. Some persons are very likely to be more right that I am on some of the details concerning this illness. However, as a result of both my recovery and my research, it seems entirely possible to me that I have may have developed a “Nobel Prize winning level of understanding” of my illness. No, I do not expect to win this prize, and yes, such a thought does smack of manic delusion. I simply state such to give the reader a sense of where I honestly think I am here. Regardless of whether I am intentionally mildly depressed, severely depressed, of normal mood, hypomanic, or I happen to be a “biochemical 10” at the moment, I have waken up each and every single day for more than four years knowing that the fact that I may have developed a “Nobel Prize winning level of understanding” of manic depression is very probably the truth. I do realize that no one as yet believes in either my representations or me personally. However, I also realize that it is extremely likely that no one on earth as yet has a clue as to how to methodically and adequately resolve a state of severe depression in his or her self in a period of time that averages as little as eight to twelve hours, assuming that they have an empty stomach prior to initiating treatment.

I have realized for quite some time that for many millions of other bipolar persons it is inevitable that medication use to control manic depression is going to be found pointless, if not seriously counterproductive to their true recovery. No medication ever invented can correct a substantial degree of essential nutrient deficiency. And fairly broad essential nutrient deficiency is clearly a very major part of what manic depression is truly all about. Medication, despite its ability to often successfully mask the symptoms of manic depression, is also successfully masking the real truth about the true causes and corrections of this state of biochemical imbalance, a state of imbalance that involves far more nutrient deficiency than nutrient excess.

Despite my saying the above, I am not entirely anti-medication. I am anti-symptom. Medication use is often a very valid steppingstone to true wellness. Medication use is still very justified until the new reality of how to cure manic depression via natural means is better worked out such that it can be widely and safely applied to other persons. Unfortunately, this latter event may take quite some time. This is because current medical research and medical practice is totally deaf to those of all of us that have either cured ourselves of this devastating illness or have made very substantial progress in this direction, and it has been deaf to us for years. It is perhaps far too much of an embarrassment to the current medical model that a number of fairly simple and fairly basic biological facts, when they are coupled together successfully as I have done, will often totally cure decades of severe symptoms of manic depression. Or perhaps this medical model and the pharmaceutical model underlying it is making way too much money, an income that they don’t want to lose if we all become well. Or perhaps persons will ask, “If manic depression is fully correctable with nutrients and other natural measures, what other illnesses can be corrected via similar natural means as well?”

If the real truth becomes known, perhaps almost every illness, both mental and physical, is going to be found to benefit far more from over the counter nutrients purchased in a health food store (or over the internet) than any medication that was ever invented. This latter truth has to scare modern medicine to death, as many doctors may lose their million dollar houses, their $50,000 cars, and anything else that may need their high incomes from dispensing medications, many of which are ultimately going to be found to be obsolete. This finding that the majority of medications are rather pale compared to the power of essential nutrients (applied properly) may take ten years to happen, it may take twenty years to happen, but it IS going to happen. The truth of the power of nutrients vs. the weakness of medication is a truth that is just far too powerful, and just way too obvious, to ignore much longer.

I know the real truth as represented in the above in a very real and deeply heartfelt way.

I know the real truth of the power of nutrients vs. the weakness of medicines partially as the result of my personally taking well over 120,000 capsules or tablets of various vitamins, minerals, amino acids, essential fatty acids, probiotics, digestive enzymes, accessory nutrients, and other natural supplements since mid 1997. At least 80,000 of these were capsules of individual or blended amino acids… which happen to be “great teachers” of how both human biochemistry and the GI tract work from a practical standpoint. Such massive supplementation is not necessary to correct manic depression. However, this massive supplementation was necessary for me in order to perform many hundreds of informal self trials over the past six years as “a guinea pig for the rest of the world” in order to discover much of significance about my illness.

I also know the real truth partially as the result of my learning how to take mania right out of the equation in 1997/8 by the use of inhibitory nutrients on a daily basis. Part of the nutrients that I take to resolve mania also greatly helps me to resolve sleep onset, sleep quality, and sleep duration issues in myself as well. Very similar inhibitory nutrients to that which I am using have perhaps helped many hundreds, if not thousands, of persons to slow down, to resolve hypomania and mania, to resolve anxiety, etc. I highly suggest the book “The Mood Cure” by Julia Ross here. Although I disagree with Ms. Ross on her suggestions regarding excitatory amino acids, as I feel they are outdated, and I also feel Ms. Ross also misses a possibly key inhibitory nutrient combination of carnitine and phosphatidyl choline, my experience with using combinations of inhibitory amino acids almost mirrors Ms. Ross’s suggestions exactly. It appears that Julia Ross, the author of “The Mood Cure”, Margot Kidder, the actress that overcame bipolar disorder in herself via natural means, and myself independently reached extremely similar conclusions on how to use inhibitory amino acids in the late 1990’s or so.

I know the real truth about the power of nutrients vs. medication partly as a result of discovering a nutrient combination in the fall of 1997 that acted just like lithium in me. This nutrient combination both slowed and steadied my rate of neuronal firing, just like lithium does, but without my having any adverse side effects whatsoever. This nutrient combination is l-carnitine in the morning and phosphatidyl choline afterwards. In my opinion, the nutrient combination of carnitine/choline simply begs to be researched in regard to its effect on manic depression. Perhaps inositol or other nutrients may either help or be necessary cofactors here as well, but no doubt about it, in combination with what else I was taking l-carnitine and phosphatidyl choline (in an adequate dosage, I use 500 mg. of carnitine and 3 to 5 capsules of phosphatidyl choline from Solgar) profoundly slowed down my “spontaneous rate of neuronal firing”, just like lithium does. It also lowered my speech volume and slowed my rate of speech remarkably. Unfortunately, since late 1997 my cries on this issue of research into carnitine/choline (along with a multivitamin multimineral preparation and some Omega 3 oil perhaps to cover any other unknown nutrient cofactors) and it’s effect on those bipolar persons that are primarily hypomanic or manic much of the time have failed. No one yet has looked at this possible breakthrough discovery that I made in the fall of 1997 in regard to what nutrients are often necessary in order to “slow the brain down”. The norm here, a norm that is unfortunately still true today, is that I am either labeled “manic delusional” for my claiming to have made any very significant discovery about manic depression (and I have made quite a few), or that I am just ignored.

I know the real truth partly as a result of my feeling at least 15 years younger physically than I did six years ago. My skin color is much better, my weight is 30 lbs. less, my muscles are and my skeletal frame are much stronger, and I have far more vitality than most persons who smoke cigarettes as much and as long as I have. My cigarette addiction I admittedly have yet to resolve. For me anyway, curing myself of manic depression is far easier that beating a heavy addiction to nicotine.

I know the real truth as the result of curing myself of both TMJ in my jawbone and also completely resolving a very arthritic and problematic back that bothered me greatly on a regular basis for almost 20 years. My back never bothers me at all now, a fact that never ceases to amaze me, as I had such serious back trouble for so long.

I know the real truth over the power of nutrients vs. meds partly as the result of my recommending a very similar nutrient regime to that which I use to control manic depression to help a person to resolve five years of fairly heavy heroin use, during which he nearly died three times (from overdose). What I gave this person nutrient-wise profoundly helped him from almost day one. Within a month he was a new man, with an aura of wellness and contentment that he hadn’t had in years. This event happened nearly two years ago, and this man is still clean (heroin free) today.

And most amazingly, I know the real truth as the result of discovering in late 1999 of how to intentionally induce a state of very severe depression with suicidal ideation attached in myself at will within three to four days or so by eating common foods that I am allergic to, and then learning how to adequately correct this suicidally depressed state within a matter of hours to at most a single day in myself. For other persons this nutritive and natural therapy may take a few days to a week. However, I can’t imagine the fairly comprehensive and all natural anti-depressive therapy that I am using taking much more than a week to have an amazingly positive effect on both mood and general well being in all but a small minority of persons (the few that are truly very ill).

Every day for over three years, if not closer to six, I wake up to the reality that it is entirely possible that, as a result of relying on a great deal of foundation work of many other persons, I may have developed some of the most accurate conceptual and practical insight into how to correct depression and manic depression to date. I say this despite the facts that (1) I am not a doctor, (2) I have almost no formal education beyond high school (despite being gifted), and (3) I still smoke cigarettes rather heavily. I do not claim perfection to anyone, but I sincerely apologize to all for not resolving my cigarette addiction, as this seriously damages my credibility on any health matters whatsoever.

Unfortunately, I also wake up to the reality that after spending perhaps as much as $200,000, if not more, in a search for answers concerning manic depression since July of 1994, my access to any sizable funds ran out in August of 2002. I now have to live on less than $800 a month net. Yet I morally cannot, and will not, take “a regular job” for greater fiscal gain. Nothing in this world means more to me but to do my best to do all that I can to attempt to end the enormous suffering that manic depression and depression causes. A regular job for fiscal gain would just interfere with this goal, as it would take up too much of my time and energy, time and energy that I have been freely giving for years to help all humankind.

Despite the above, I am not here with my hand out to ask for or to take anything at all. Money means almost nothing to me. I was a self-made millionaire once in my life, and I was so depressed I almost blew my brains out. Now I am healthy both mentally and physically. Other than retaining my own health and well being, only one other single thing really matters to me. This “other thing” is my seeing that answers that I may have discovered as a result of extraordinary effort since my diagnosis of bipolar disorder in June 1994 move forward as they should… such that many other persons are ultimately cured of manic depression without having to take nearly as long and hard a road as I had to travel in which to do so.

I sure could use some solid help from other intelligent persons with in regard to the answers that I have discovered in regarding to correcting depression within a matter of days, if not a matter of hours, in most persons so afflicted. I have been asking for this help for years, both inside the medical model and within the confines of alternative medicine. Thus far, my pleas for help with discoveries that I know to be significant have been to no avail. I have been repeatedly ignored by both allopathic and alternative medicine. The claims that I have been making since early 2000 in regard to the correction of severe depression in such a short time are perhaps just too extraordinary to be believed by anyone, yet I know in my heart that in essence these claims are absolutely true. Certainly, I might not be right about everything, and much of what I know could be easily improved on or refined. However, just as it stands the multi-stage natural anti-depressive therapy that I first discovered beginning in August of 1999 and had verified within months of its discovery is a very logical therapy. It is also a therapy that is based on much solid biological and scientific fact as well. In my opinion, this natural antidepressive therapy has also been anecdotally validated well enough at this point be worth a solid look at by at least some person or organizational body. It would certainly help if this person or organizational body had the ability to effect real change, as I am powerless by myself in this regard.

We humans appear to be very odd creatures… I just don’t understand why it is I that has been blessed with such extraordinary knowledge of how to correct depression and manic depression via natural means… and then I reach out to others for help to take a look at what I have discovered… and the end result is that I often just get either personally attacked or ignored… despite the fact that my heart is in the right place and I only want to help… and I have no agenda of enrichment or self aggrandizement whatsoever. I don’t mind a whit if my discoveries are plagiarized by others and/or I don’t receive either a dime or any credit whatsoever for them… as long these discoveries are validated and refined by a party capable of doing so… and then used to reduce much human suffering, as I am aware that they can.

Lastly, I pray that some day in the future the current medical model will not continue to ignore the overwhelming anecdotal evidence that has been generated for many years that the two biochemical issues of hidden food allergy and intestinal dysbiosis (which allopathic doctors often actually cause by the prescription of Antibiotics ) are often primary causative factors in depression, manic depression, ADHD, schizophrenia, alcoholism (and perhaps other substance abuse as well), fibromyalgia, arthritis, migraines, and a whole host of other physical and mental illnesses. I also pray that some day lessons such as those that I have learned in my recovery from over three decades of bipolar symptoms are not only actually heard, but that they are acted upon appropriately by someone, as well as acted upon appropriately by modern medical science.

Allen Darman

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